Marionville man receives probation in domestic assault case involving shots fired

Oct. 20—MOUNT VERNON, Mo. — A Marionville man was granted suspended sentences and probation when he pleaded guilty recently to firearm charges in a felony domestic assault case.

Norman K. Katz, 59, pleaded guilty Oct. 12 in Lawrence County Circuit Court to felony counts of unlawful possession of a firearm and unlawful use of a weapon in a plea agreement dismissing related counts of first-degree domestic assault and first-degree child endangerment and recommending the suspended sentences he received.

All four counts had been filed on the defendant in connection with a domestic disturbance June 14, 2021, during which he drunkenly discharged a handgun inside his residence, according to a probable-cause affidavit.

Judge David Cole accepted the plea deal and sentenced Katz to 10 years on the unlawful possession count and seven years on the unlawful use count with execution of the sentences suspended and the defendant placed on supervised probation for five years.

Sherry Katz testified at a preliminary hearing in August that her husband had been drinking with a friend when she got home from work the night in question and asked him to turn down some music he had blaring. She said he became argumentative when she unplugged the stereo, pinned her down on a bed and choked her with his arm across her throat.

He then got out his .25-caliber handgun and told her that she should summon the other men she knew so he could have it out with them because he had pancreatic cancer and did not care what happened to him any longer, she told the court. She said he declared that before he died, he was going "to take a few people out with him," and fired two shots into the floor.

Their 8-year-old son, who was in another room of the house at the time, heard the shots and came out and took the gun's ammunition clip away from his father, she told the court.

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